


You Are Missing From Me

by Iske



Series: Demon AU One Shots [3]
Category: Linked Universe - Fandom, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bittersweet, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-22
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:40:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24318970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iske/pseuds/Iske
Summary: “Who’s there?” She rasps, voice cracking and bones creaking.“N-No! Don’t move, please stay still you shouldn’t - ah, I shouldn’t have come here, I knew it-”Familiar babbling washes over her, frozen for a single second before golden warmth bloomed like a long-dead flower in her chest.“Sky?”(You do not have permission to repost this work to any other website)
Relationships: Sky/Sun (Linked Universe)
Series: Demon AU One Shots [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1742443
Comments: 8
Kudos: 86





	You Are Missing From Me

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Legend of Zelda or the Linked Universe AU; the former belongs to Nintendo and the latter to Jojo.

It was a dark night, the gentle touch of moonlight dancing with a fickle breeze outside the small timber home and through its open doorway. Giggling in cricket chirps, it glided across the ceiling and dispersed with a satisfied sigh.

Sun relished the tender chill it brought through her blankets.

Face hot and wheezing with each breath, she shuffles around before settling once more, coaxed into resting by the thick, soft fabric encasing her.

Floorboards creak at the foot of her bed, a weight far heavier than the summer night air setting foot into her home.

Sun’s eyes flew open on instinct, unseeing and floundering as she struggles to lift herself up, blankets pooling around her waist.

“Who’s there?” She rasps, voice cracking and bones creaking.

“N-No! Don’t move, please stay still you shouldn’t - ah, I shouldn’t have come here, I  _ knew _ it-”

Familiar babbling washes over her, frozen for a single second before golden warmth bloomed like a long-dead flower in her chest.

“Sky?”

She can feel the heat radiating off his presence as he moves closer, slow and unsure. Holding her breath - holding back 61 years worth of tears - she waits for a word, a sign that she wasn’t hearing things, that the veil had not yet lifted and that she was still in the land of the living; that this was real and he was  _ here _ .

Shaking, a hand reaches out to hold hers, a calloused thumb tenderly rubbing over her knuckles.

She can hear the groan of trees giving way to an axe, bowing her head she holds their hands to her face. She can feel the passage of tears running rivers through wrinkled canals down her cheeks, can hear herself sobbing his name into his fingers, but all she cares to know is the way he softly kisses the top of her head, whispering her name back to her through the wiry strands of white hair that sprout where blonde used to grow.

“You’re here,” she croaks, curling over their hands, “you’re  _ here _ , I thought you were - we all thought-”

“I’m so sorry,” Sky whines, his free hand coming to cradle her head and tuck her against his shoulder, “I couldn’t come back, I was...held up.”

Sun wants to sob and scream for all the days she spent waiting for him to return, but she’s lost in the memory of days spent like this. Young and flourishing in fields of green, huddled close to him and watching clouds roll by. Bright blue eyes, rosy cheeks and a button nose…

She shuffles closer to him, burying her face in his neck and...she falls still. Once, where freckled, sun-kissed skin had been were feathers. Sky stiffens as she pulls away, untangling their fingers to reach out and feel through fluffy, unkempt feathers. 

She doesn’t need to see to know he’s scared. Waiting for reproach, for disgust, to shove a wall between them. For her to snatch her hands away and scream in horror.

She moves her hands from his feathers to his face, cupping what she hopes are still adorably rosy cheeks.

“Held up, huh?” 

Leaning into her hands, Sky carefully wraps taloned -  _ taloned _ , how had she not noticed? - fingers around her wrist and holds her there, as if afraid she would give in to second thoughts and turn away.

“Demise cursed me,” he mumbles into her leathery palm, “He turned me into a demon.”

“Oh.” Sun exhales quietly, the air punched out of her as the words began to coarse through her veins.

_ Cursed _

_ Turned into a demon _

She knew her Sky, how he would’ve spent those 61 long years afraid and ashamed, probably searching for ways to reverse the spell. To free himself from his corrupted chains. She can picture him tearing out feathers, tears flowing like raging rivers down a mountainside, running and hiding from humanity - hunted…

Gasping, Sun jolts back as much as her bones would allow.

“The guards! They didn’t see you, did they?”

“No,” Sky huffs a sad, weak laugh, “no I manoeuvred around them.”

“But it’s still dangerous,” she wheezes, the excitement of reunion giving way to the fever lancing through her body like a lightning bolt, “you could be killed.”

“I know, but...I wanted to see you again.”

Caving in on itself, her heart fluttered and it wasn't the fever that warmed it. She gave him a small smile, his hands releasing hers so they could fall into her lap.

“So,” Sky began and she was happy to hear the grin in his voice, “grand-kids huh?”

Laughter whistling up and out her throat, she shakes her head fondly.

“Yes, grand-kids.”

“And kids.”

“Mhm,” she hums, “all six of them.”

“That’s...a  _ lot. _ ”

“Oh, well at first yes, but now it’s so much easier.”

“Now that they’ve moved out you mean?”

“I still love them!” Sun protests, delighting in the small bubble of genuine laughter she earns in response, before daring to speak her thoughts aloud and ask.

“What about you? Any baby demons running loose?”

Silence.

Crippling, sad silence. Sky sighs and she can tell he’s fiddling with something - either the ends of his sleeves or the hem of his clothes, if her memory serves her right.

“No, I wouldn’t want to...I don’t want them to know this kind of world.”

“Sky-”

“It’s just-” He quickly cut over her, “Kids? Yes, I would love to have kids. But they’d be hunted and I don’t...I couldn’t do that to them. I can’t bring them into a world that would hate them from birth.”

Soft brown hair and blue eyes, she watches him vanish from sight, back turned as he descends the mountain into hellfire. She prays for him every day and every night. She just wants him to be happy, somehow. Some way.

Reaching out, she blindly navigates his body to find his face, thumb stroking over his cheekbone, fingers finding wings where ears used to be and curling behind them.

“Is there anyone out there that you could..?” She trails off as she feels him shake his head.

“No, just...just you.”

Her heart breaking for him, she musters the wisdom she has gained throughout the years and sits up straighter, transforming from dying grandmother into the high priestess of Hylia once more.

“You are going to have a very long life, my love,” she rasps, “I want you to find someone to spend it with.”

“There’s no one.” He mumbles, low and pitiful.

“Maybe not right now, but there will be.”

“Sun-” He starts but she doesn’t let him finish.

She’s worried and she wants to know. She  _ has  _ to know. Prickling her skin, all the fine hairs along her arms and legs rise as her magic surges within. For the smallest moment before her powers pull her under, she can see him. Blue eyes turned yellow with wide black slitted pupils, a warm rainbow of feathers - ah, he still has his freckles…

_ Foliage overhead, years alone and isolated ended with eight smiles, pink and biting, tattoos playful but parental, all grown up - children, years down the line, not by blood but by choice. Howling at the moon for fun instead of instinct, split mind and five times the happiness, giggling and a fox tail vanishing through the underbrush. Fragile and mortal. Holy and humble, brown hair and gold eyes. Blonde and broken, a warrior and a lover. Clashing with the way of the world, a mark of change and fate, long and blonde, freshly scarred and shrieking with laughter. _

Her power recedes, taking the last remnants of her strength with her. Coughing and collapsing, Sky catches her and helps lay her back down.

“That was stupid,” he’s frantic, fighting back sobs as he watches her deteriorate in front of him, “you shouldn’t have-”

He stops, cut off by the sight of her smile - at peace and reassured. 

“You’re going to be...just fine.”

Breath coming out in stuttering gasps, he folds beside her, tightly holding onto her arm. Calloused hands wrapped around leathery skin. Chest sagging under the growing weight of breathing, Sun listens to the memory cowering within her - loneliness on its knees in a flower field, wishing she had gone with him, that he was with her…

“Stay with me?”

Nodding against her arm, talons twine with the gnarled roots of her fingers.

“Of course.”

**Author's Note:**

> Demon AU is all I can think about so I'm sorry, but it's most likely all you're going to be getting from me for a while. 
> 
> Anyway! Thank you for reading the latest installment of this AU of an AU! I hope you enjoyed it, and please let me know if you've noticed any errors in the work or if you have any questions!! I'm on the Linked Universe discord as 'iske' so you can hit me up there if you don't wanna do so here! 
> 
> Until the next installment <3


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